Story highlights
Police say the couple were heading to the hospital when a car crashed into their cab
A cousin says the couple killed in the car crash had been married for less than a year
Police: The expectant parents' baby was rescued by Cesarean section and is in critical condition
The occupants of the other car fled the scene, police say
A midnight car crash in New York killed two expectant parents who were heading to the hospital Sunday. But their baby was rescued from her dead mother’s womb by Cesarean section and is in critical condition, police say.
Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21, were riding in a livery cab in Brooklyn. Another car, a BMW, crashed into the cab at an intersection, slamming into its side, at about 12:10 a.m. Sunday.
The two occupants of the BMW fled the scene on foot and are being sought by police.
The driver of the cab, a Toyota Corolla, was taken to the hospital, and later released.
“The only thing I can remember is when somebody was on the side of me, on the passenger side, telling me, ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. The ambulance is on the way,’” driver Pedro Nuñez Delacruz told CNN affiliate WABC. “I feel very lucky, you know, that I’m still alive.”
The Glaubers were soon pronounced dead at two different hospitals, said Sgt. Tom Antonetti, a police spokesman. Police initially identified the name as Gluber, but revised that later in the day.
Bellevue Hospital performed a C-section to rescue the baby.
At the time of the crash, the couple were on the way to Long Island College Hospital “for a wellness check,” said Officer Sophia Tassy-Mason, a spokeswoman for the New York City Police Department.
“It was sudden,” said Sarah Gluck, Raizy Glauber’s cousin. “She just wasn’t feeling well and they just, they went to check it out.”
The couple had been married for less than a year, said Barry Sekete, a cousin of one of the victims.
“It’s terrible,” he told CNN affiliate New York 1. “They’re … not even married a year, and you know they’re going into the happiest times, to have a baby, and that’s what happens. Terrible.”
Delacruz said he didn’t find out what happened to the Glaubers until he got into the ambulance.
“I feel very sorry for that beautiful family,” he said.
The crash brought heartache to the Hasidic community.
The young Orthodox Jewish couple were “preparing for the most joyous moment in life, to become parents, ready to build a castle to the future and build a family,” said Isaac Abraham, a community leader and neighbor of the couple.
The community is working to make sure the baby boy gets all the medical attention he needs, Abraham said.
The child will be taken care of by family, friends, and the community, he said.
“The message to the driver: We know law enforcement is going to get to you,” Abraham to CNN affliate WABC. “But our message is give yourself up before we find you.”
Investigators were talking with the car’s registered owner on Sunday, Tassy-Mason said. Tassy-Mason said she did not know whether the vehicle had been stolen or what the relationship was between the car’s owner and its occupants.
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CNN’s Chris Kokenes, Josh Levs and Mark Morgenstein contributed to this report.